Sony 7506

My new pair of Sony 7506 professional closed-back headphones just arrived on the FedEx truck today (BSW is a great source for pro audio gear btw). I’ve spent a couple of hours listening to them and they’re definitely a major step up from the Audio Technica ‘phones I’ve been using. They should be great for recording and podcasting (which is nominally why I bought them) but I’m really looking forward to checking out more of my iTunes catalogue with them. I’d like to get a pair of open headphones like the Sennheiser HD595′s, but from what I’ve read they’ll probably annoy everyone else in the house that’s trying to sleep. The good news about the Sony’s (and most closed-back headphones in general) is that they do a great job of of isolating sound – what you’re listening to is almost completely inaudible to everyone else, and external noises are minimized. If you’re into music and/or want to check out some hard-core audiophile info try the Head-Fi forums. Of course if you do, beware the amount of money you’ll be tempted to spend on exotic audiophile gear!

Here’s an excerpt from a recent Charlie Rose interview with Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. It’s a very interesting perspective on how we got into our current economic mess.

“Yahoo Inc.’s board plans to reject Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited $44.6 billion offer to acquire the Web giant, a person familiar with the situation says.

After a series of meetings over the past week, Yahoo’s board determined that the $31 per share offer “massively undervalues” Yahoo, the person said. It also doesn’t account for the risks Yahoo would be taking by entering into an agreement that might be overturned by regulators. The board plans to send a letter to Microsoft…”

“Dell Inc. has decided to stop selling most consumer systems powered by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. chips through Dell’s popular Web site.

The big computer company says it still plans to keep selling the AMD-based machines in retail stores and over the phone. But Dell’s decision is nevertheless seen as a negative for AMD, which took years to convince Dell to modify its longtime strategy of using only chips from Intel Corp.”

You can read the article on the Wall Street Journal website.

Ouch!!

UPDATE: I posted an update that you might want to check out. The update was written a year after this original post and has some thoughts on the project after using the camera.

I got a CVS one-time-use video camera for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. They make for a fun hardware hacking project as there are a lot of sites on the internet with instructions for hacking them. Once you’ve completed the hack you get a re-usable, semi-disposable video camera for $30. There are a bunch of other great additional hacks you can do once you’ve unlocked the camera, like making it waterproof, etc.

It’s a fun project, but you’ll need to be comfortable soldering things together, working with open source utilities, etc. If you’ve got some free time and a penchant for that sort of thing you should give it a shot.

Interesting to compare this to to Warren Bennis’ article How Business Schools Lost Their Way.